quietly crap my pants, then go to a press conference where only journalists my staff has vetted and invited, with questions that have all been vetted, are allowed to be asked of me while on national television (albiet on a channel nobody watches). Then I'd struggle to answer even those simple, pre-approved questions because if I actually lie than I've committed a crime, but if I only pretend to be stupid and not understand the question well, i'm just a public figure - they're all like that!

But seriously, the answer is "try to make it look unsafe so people are too scared to sell dollars and buy bitcoins" that could take many many forms, but I suspect at some point in the next 3-6 months we'll see serious talk of government regulation (which won't work, and will first crash the price then drive it up higher than ever)

BitTalkwith Atlas & AtomA Show for the Bitcoin Universe, Fresh Episodes Weekly!Episode 3 out now at BitTalk.tv

Try to discredit it. Try to get it banned. Try to regulate the exchanges. Try to get as many users arrested as possible under any interpretation of financial or tax code the lawyers can come up with. Throw everything I could at creating a ASIC cluster to fork the chain into worthlessness before the ASICs start hitting the average miner. Realize the gig is up, create a bunch of dollars and buy bitcoins with it.

Hoover up as many BTC as possible...easy to do if you have an unlimited supply of $$$.

Keep the option of dumping them onto the market at any time open like the Sword of Damoclese hanging over the head of anyone who might amass to big a position (and who is not on the 'right side' of the operation.)

That would probably be a good thing for the plebes using the market. Would suck for people who wish to use it as a medium for storage and transfer of _real_ wealth.

Its not exactly the same since even if they did hoard a lot of it and use it to increase the bitcoin in circulation, if the Fed had BTC in storage, it was bought and paid for and they would just be considered a large long term investor. The only play the Fed would have in a BTC world would be through regulation in home soil, which is unlikely.

threaten severe criminal penalties for any large companies (google, ebay, etc) who consider adopting it. turning american citizens into "domestic terrorists". initiate spy-net and send an army of cyborgs after us.... one of which is Arnold Schwarzeneggar.